Octarine Deficiency
by Grey L. Bloom
Summary: What happens when the Great A'Tuin, StarTurtle, gets a cold? ME! Heh. Yeah. Some stuff happens, I make fun of slow sunrises, you hopefully R&R. Joy! Last chapter posted. PG for minimal swearing.
1. Default Chapter

Author's notes: None of the Discworld stuff belongs to me (woe! woe!) although I wish it did. Don't sue me, all you'll get is a film canister full of Canadian change anyway.  
  
Whee! I've been working on this for a bit, and I think I've gotten it to the point where I can just leave it as a one-shot, no problem, but if somebody R&Rs, asking for more, I'll most likely stick on some more chapters.  
  
Chapter 1: Instant Sunlight  
  
It was a normal enough day. The sun was shining, the birds were singing, and the author was choking on an overdose of cliches. Such things are normal in the course of the world, while other things... are not.  
  
As it was, things seemed to run pretty smoothly, excepting the fact that what some people liked to call "Magic" bounced up and down on the world as if it were one giant trampoline, and "Magic Creatures" took to running amok across the morbidly fascinating landscape. This changed the working order of some things, so while Tab A USED to be inserted in Slot B, it was NOW inserted into Little Glowy Slit #235X0774. And vice versa. Happily enough, this isn't any sort of story about tabs and slots and little glowy slits. That would be a very boring and very short story, not to mention the fact that the author would most likely run off a cliff screaming before she got through the first page (this would probably be an event of much celebration, but that's not important). So instead she's going to play with your minds and see how far she can warp your Mind's Eye.  
  
Hopefully, not very far.  
  
Once upon a time, far far away, the universe, as it was being created, was thrown for a loop. The Creator had meant for it to be nice and normal and for things to happily develop over time, lots and lots of time, but instead something fell out of whack and so did the rest of the universe.   
  
  
  
The sun rose over the Discworld, and, suddenly, the world was thrust into morning. Farmers blinked and roosters crowed softly to themselves, trying to figure out what was going on, and in Ankh-Morpork, in the highest tower, Mustrum Ridcully, Archancellor of Unseen University, slept. This is what he normally did in the mornings, usually until about noon, but lots of other people in Ankh-Morpork did too. That was because the sunlight never got there until noon.  
  
But today it did.  
  
Ridcully mumbled something like "Wsflgl," rolled over, and smacked his lips as his muddled subconcious waded through the mists of sleep and began banging on his concious with a large hammer. Someone started banging on his door and yelling. "What is it?" Ridcully grumbled, prying his sleep-encrusted eyes open and swinging his legs out of bed. He sent a spell flying towards the door, the special one he used to open doors when he was too tired or lazy.  
  
Nothing happened, but Ridcully didn't notice.   
  
"Archancellor! Open the door! It's important!" came Ponder Stibbon's voice from outside.  
  
"I did open the door," the Archancellor yelled hoarsely back, shoving his head underneath his pillow. There was silence from outside.  
  
"You... didn't use a spell, did you?" came the wavering question.  
  
"Of course I did! I'm in bed! I don't want to get up just to open the door," Mustrum growled back in answer.  
  
*I told you he'd go spare.*  
  
*Be quiet, Dean!*  
  
*Whoops! The sofa needs some strawberry jello pie! Which of you fine rutabagas will help me?*  
  
*Chair, could you please escort the Bursar to the dining hall and tie him down?*  
  
*Dean...*  
  
*What?*  
  
"Archancellor, we're having a bit of a problem..."  
  
Ridcully sighed and got out of bed, throwing his bathrobe on. It was covered in sequins and occult symbols, in the style (or lack of) of all Wizards Disc-wide. He turned toward the door, and stopped. It wasn't open. "The door isn't open!" he bellowed.  
  
"That's what I've been trying to tell you, Archancellor," came Ponder's patient tones.  
  
Mustrum strode forward, grasped the handle, and threw open the door with a large crash. "What," he growled, turning red, "is going on here?!?"  
  
  
  
"It all started when Adrian noticed that Hex had stopped working," Stibbons explained, jogging a bit to keep up with the Archancellor. "The ants were just milling around willy-nilly and the parp ball had stopped parping."  
  
"Parping," Ridcully echoed back, his eyebrows knit into a complicated (and frightening) mess of lines and bulges.  
  
"And so then we tried a few spells on him-"  
  
"Him?"  
  
"Hex."  
  
"Oh."  
  
"Anyway, yes, they didn't... work." Ponder slowed down at this point, turning pink around the ears.  
  
"Didn't work?" Ridcully was dangerously close to trying to understand what Ponder was talking about.  
  
"Well, it wasn't that they didn't work; I'm sure they would've worked normally; it's just that they... didn't happen. There's no magic, Archancellor."  
  
"No magic?" Ridcully asked himself thoughtfully, coming to a full halt. Ponder jogged a few more steps before he realized what had happened and jogged back. "Is it something to do with waves? Or maybe some kind of wiggly little animal sucking it all up?"  
  
"Little animal..." Ponder gave Ridcully a helpless look. "No, I don't think that any sort of animal is responsible for-" Ponder stopped, choking and turning an interesting shade of purple. "Oh, Gods... The Librarian!" he moaned.  
  
"Ah, it's his fault, is it?"  
  
"No! No! The Librarian hasn't woken up yet! Who knows whether he's still an orangutan or not!"  
  
"Oh dear!" the Bursar giggled. "Out of cheese error! Bring on the cucumbers!"  
  
  
  
Commander Vimes stood on the corner and swore in the morning sun. The sun wasn't supposed to be up for hours. What business did it have intruding on his smoke?  
  
Captain Carrot jogged up behind him. "Sir!"  
  
"Yes, I know, Carrot, I'm not blind!" Vimes yelled, throwing his cigar on the ground and jumping up and down on it in his rage, his tarnished breastplate clanging and bouncing loosely on his chest.  
  
"The sun, sir! It... well... -you- know, sir..." Carrot trailed off, scratching his bright red hair and staring at his commanding officer.  
  
Vimes glared down at his flattened cigar. It had been his last. He would have to buy more. "Damn." He scratched his chin and felt stubble there, trying to ignore Carrot standing there like an expectant... an expectant Carrot. He felt obligated to say something, anything. "Has that idiot reporter gotten news of this?"  
  
"Reporter, sir?" Carrot blinked.  
  
"De Worde," Vimes said, scrabbling for a time and place to help himself remember. "Y'know, the one who kept getting under our feet in the whole Vetinari mess." He'd just lighted it. It was still sweet.   
  
"With the golems, sir?"  
  
"No no, that was when we swore in Corporal Dorfl," Vimes mumbled, musing on the expensive Klatchian cigar that lay defiled at his feet. "After that. When de Worde started that -wonderful- newspaper."   
  
"Ah, yes!" Carrot brightened in recognition. "The Ankh-Morpork Times! A joy of a read for the whole Watch house, sir."  
  
Vimes looked up at Carrot, and was struck by the Dwarf's complete inability to grasp sarcasm, though not for the first (or last) time. "Every day?"  
  
Carrot nodded. "Yes, sir! Although it's something of a job to read it before Nobby gets it, sir. That's always a task."  
  
Vimes stared at Carrot. "I never thought that Nobby would be the reading type."  
  
"No, not really, sir," Carrot said, leaning forward as though he knew a big and embarrassing secret. "I think he may hoard it for use in the privy, sir."  
  
"Nobby uses paper in the privy?" Vimes didn't know why this surprised him. It just didn't seem like a Nobby thing to do. But the poor cigar...   
  
"I'm sure he does, sir," Carrot answered, a tad reproachfully. "I mean... doesn't everyone, sir?"  
  
Vimes stopped. "How did we manage to travel from the sun to Nobby's privy habits, Carrot?"  
  
Looooong pause.  
  
"My, the sun sure is early today, isn't it, sir?" Carrot said a tad squeakily, turning toward the aforementioned sun, which continued to rise quite stubbornly.  
  
"Yes," Vimes said. He had really wanted that cigar.  
  
  
  
"Librarian? Are you in here?"  
  
The shelves were eerily quiet. The air, normally filled with the rustling of restless pages and the clanking of chains, was still and quiet, dust floating on the air. The wizards shivered as they opened the door wide enough to admit them.  
  
"I think I hear something!" Ponder hissed, cocking his head.  
  
"Sorry about that," the Lecturer in Recent Runes whispered. The other wizards shuffled away from him.  
  
The compact body of wizards (with the Lecturer in Recent Runes lagging behind a bit, looking embarrassed) moved through the silent library, kicking up dust and coughing in the sun that streamed through high, streaked windows. The Librarian's ropes and tires swung lazily in the rafters, a creaking reminder of their inhabitant.  
  
"Oh dear," the Archchancellor muttered, as the wizards slowed to a halt. The Lecturer in Recent Runes skidded into the Bursar, knocking a few dried frog pills on the floor.  
  
They stared at the Librarian's desk with its confusing tangle of fuzzy blankets and old banana peels underneath. Something was moving in the nest.  
  
"Librarian?" the Dean ventured in tremulous tones.   
  
A whispered "Oook" came from the trembling, fuzzy, slimy mass. The wizards relaxed as one body.  
  
"That's taken care of, then," the Archchancellor boomed, turning back to the other wizards and clapping his hands. "Let's check on Hex, eh?"  
  
The faculty left the library, closing the old wooden doors behind them and restoring the library's fragile peace. A hand reached up to the top of the desk, grabbed a banana, and disappeared. Inside his nest, the Librarian tried to peel the banana with his feet, wondered why it wouldn't work, and crooned to himself.  
  
  
  
Somewhere in the Ramtop Mountains, in the small, backwards country called Lancre, someone let out a howl of rage.  
  
Granny Weatherwax literally bristled, her silvery eyebrows trembling and twitching and her black-shawled shoulders shaking with contained fury. The fact that she was sitting on her rear end on the cold stone hearth did not help in the slightest. She grabbed the mantelpiece with white knuckles and swung herself up without bending a joint. The stone squeaked and crumbled underneath her fingers.  
  
She had been in the middle of a flight. Someone somewhere was going to pay dearly for this.  
  
  
  
Ponder Stibbons watched helplessly as the Archchancellor yelled, red-faced, down Hex's ear trumpet. This was so embarrassing. The ants were scurrying around catching falling dirt, the beach ball was vibrating, and the plate of cheese was bouncing on the table.  
  
"I SAY, BE A GOOD OCCULT CONTRAPTION AND WAKE UP, HEY?"  
  
"What's he doing?" Adrian whispered, his mop of hair bristled and standing up like a privy brush. "Doesn't he know Hex doesn't sleep?"  
  
"Shh," Stibbons hissed back, rubbing his temples with a hand. "Archancellor, I don't think that's going to work very-"  
  
"Nonsense!" Ridcully interrupted, waving an enormous hand at the younger wizard. "ISN'T THAT RIGHT, HEX? YOU'LL BE UP AND ABOUT ANY MINUTE NOW!" He mopped at his forehead with a stained handkerchief and turned to Stibbons again. "What's the matter with it, anyway?"  
  
Ponder jogged nervously from foot to foot, sweat beading on his face and fogging up his glasses. "Like you said, Archancellor, it's an 'occult contraption'; it can't run without magic. And there isn't any magic."  
  
  
  
The country-side was silent. Trolls were frozen on the hillsides, mere strangely-shaped rocks. Gnomes could be found on the ground, not dead, but certainly not alive. They were like stones, they gave a sense of never having had the chance to die, because they had never had a chance to live.   
  
Forests with well-known high-magic levels whispered normally in the wind, the talking trees silenced to their annual heartbeat. The swamp dragons in the Ankh-Morpork Sunshine Sanctuary slumped against the walls of their pens, those that hadn't exploded in a sheer burst of existential uncertainty. Old Tom, the Unseen University's bell, shuddered and fell from his tower, hitting the ground with a resounding clang, the only sound he had made since he was made (Old Tom's clapper had fallen out soon after he was put up; he was famous for ringing the hour with echoing silences).  
  
The Gods, on their mountain, gasped as though for air, slowly realizing that Belief, while powerful, was a magic all it's own... and in a black garden on the edge of time, Death died.  
  
  
  
There are few things stronger than magic on the Discworld. Bravery is weak; too many brave fools have met their ends facing mad wizards. Love is powerless; people die whether you love them or not. Courage is merely bravery under another name. Common sense has no hold over magic; just because it has no logic doesn't mean it doesn't exist. These are things that jump to mind when one thinks of things stronger than magic, but none of them have power to do much else but make you feel either good or dead (or just good AND dead).  
  
Fear is a different story. Fear is a different book. Fear, alone, is a different library.  
  
  
  
The Librarian had never had many problems, when it came right down to it. Give him enough books, enough bananas, and the respect to call him an ape instead of a monkey, and he was content. He suddenly found himself pressed with a few very hard existential dillemas.  
  
1) Why did his feet stop working?  
  
2) Why didn't he still like bananas?  
  
And 3) Why did he not like the idea of being called an ape?  
  
The Librarian stood decidedly (after a brief interlude of holding his head and moaning; he then moved out from under his desk) and brushed himself off. He took a few steps, swinging his arms like pendulums, then, reaching the door, turned the handle, opened the heavy wooden door, and stared out at a small quivering student.  
  
The Librarian removed his pointy hat and scratched his head, staring after the fleeing, screaming student. He hadn't meant for that to happen. He shrugged, replaced his hat, and turned down the corridor, his Wizard's robe sweeping behind him.  
  
  
  
In the darkness of space, an enormous turtle swam languidly, the world balanced on his back rotating slowly. (Well, actually, no one knew whether the turtle was a he or a she, but for the sake of sanity we'll call it a him.) The great Star-turle A'Tuin snuffled a bit, and one of the enormous, planet-sized elephants that supported the discworld handed down (yes, yes, TRUNKED down, geez) a large, white, flat, smooth... thing.  
  
The great A'Tuin blew his nose. 


	2. Chapter 2a

Author's notes: More! Whee! Although I think I may have gotten in over my head... the end of 2a suggests some actual plot. *ominous music, thunder, etc.* Which probably means a lot more chapters. Bear with me here!  
  
  
Chapter 2a  
  
Life under the bridge passed by like it always did. (Except for, of course, Gaspode ceased to speak, but the residents under the bridge didn't always notice things like this.)  
  
"Gottle o' geer, gottle o' geer. I told 'em, I told 'em, I told 'em. Bugrit. Millenium hand and shrimp. Bugrit."  
  
"Haaaaaaawwwwwwwrrrk-ptooi."  
  
"Whut?"  
  
"Time for you to feed your duck."  
  
"What duck?"  
  
  
  
"COMMANDER VIMES!!!" Nobby caught a glance of Angua's wild eyes before she picked him up by his rumpled collar and shook him. "WHERE'S THE COMMANDER???"  
  
"I-i-i-i-i-i-in th-th-th-th-th-the offiiiiiiiice," he stuttered out, choking on the words as his head rocked back and forth. The werewolf dropped him and ran off. Nobby straightened his helmet and shakily extracted a roll-up from behind his ear. "Yessir," he muttered, lighting up the soggy, drooping cylinder. "Gotta' lay off the Bearhuggers before goin' in. Yessir. Yessiree. And bob."  
  
  
Ponder Stibbons, the Reader in Invisible Writings, melted under Granny Weatherwax's diamond gaze. "How did you get here?" he managed, clutching to his hat like a lifeline.  
  
"By carriage," she replied in dry, withering tones. "Take me to the Archchancellor. NOW."  
  
"Yes m'm," he choked, backing up as she strode through the doors.  
  
Granny Weatherwax stiffened as Nanny Ogg and Agnes Nitt shuffled in behind her. "We don't want to frighten the poor dear, Esme," Nanny intoned, giving Ponder a toothless grin that was somehow more frightening than Granny's stare. He leaned back, horrified. Who on the Discworld were these terrible old women and... um... the other woman?  
  
Agnes wound her black lace handkerchief in her fingers nervously, shooting nervous glances around her and hunching her shoulders as though she were trying to make herself disappear by pure force of will. 'Magic certainly wouldn't work,' she thought bitterly. She waited for a moment. No Perdita. "Poot," she mumbled to herself.  
  
  
What most people don't understand is that Wizards and Witches are entirely different. Sure, they both use magic, sure, they're both mysterious and mainly celibate, (Gytha Ogg and Magrat of Lancre not included), but the differences they DO have are a mile wide.  
  
Wizards depend entirely on magic for their power, using it for everything they wanted to do, from levitation to building towers to healing knotted backs. Witches, on the other hand, used balanced portions of Magic, Headology, and something uniquely Elvish that no one has ever been able to accurately describe. It's called Glamour.  
  
  
"What do you mean it doesn't work?" Vimes groaned, rubbing his temples and staring at the irate Sergeant Angua in front of him.  
  
"It doesn't work! My... thing!" she howled, bouncing a bit in her rage. "This has never happened before! Never, do you understand me? I have ALWAYS been able to turn into a wolf WHENEVER I WANTED."  
  
Vimes stared at her for a moment. Her hair bristled and shot straight out from her scalp in a terrifying tangle of tension and fury. "Aha," he said calmly. "Phenomenon such as this one have been reported all over the city. There are Vampires celebrating in the streets because sunlight doesn't affect them anymore, Trolls have turned into lumps of high-quality stone, and our own Constable has become even more of a corpse than he already was."  
  
Angua paled, and her hair calmed. "Not Reg?" she asked, leaning on the desk. "And all the other zombies?"  
  
"Dead," Vimes replied, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms over his chest. "Or in pieces. Mr. Slant of the Guild of Lawyers was found as a large pile of foul-smelling dust on his chair this morning."  
  
"What does this all mean?" she mumbled, staring at him.  
  
Vimes was silent. "It only affects magical or undead creatures and people, so by that we can assume that..." He slowed, and slumped forward. "Dammit. Another set of Clues, and Fred'll be all over this one. This time it's 'the Gods punishing the abnormal,' or 'at least it's not us, sir, if you catch my drift.'"  
  
Angua smiled weakedly. "What's your opinion?"  
  
"It'll blow over sooner or later," Vimes mumbled, "but until then it's not our concern. Back to work, Sergeant."  
  
  
Up on Cori Celesti, surrounded by prostrate Gods and Goddesses, a Discworld map lay on a small, chess-sized table, covered by a glittering grid. A box had been knocked over, and pieces spilled across the surface. If one looked carefully at any piece, they would see a small carved version of a person, with a name written on the base. Let us take one, just for idle curiousity.  
  
It is a woman. She has strict, light hair, pulled back into a Governess' bun, with a single black streak running through it. She is wearing a simple, slightly form-fitting dress. The name carved on the base is "Susan Sto-Helit."  
  
On closer observation, the piece has fallen quite decidely in the middle of Klatch.  
  
***  
Loved it? Hated it? LET ME KNOW!!! Suggestions are also eternally welcome. ^-^! 


	3. Chapter 2b

Author's notes: Drumroll, please... I'm bringing back one of my ABSOLUTE FAVORITE characters, who, as far as I can tell, has only appeared in "The Colour of Magic," "The Light Fantastic," and "Interesting Times." But I haven't read anything after "The Truth," or "Reaper Man" and "Witches Abroad," so don't hurt me! (R&R! Pretty please, with sugar on top?)  
  
Oh, by the way, could someone who's read "Thief of Time" tell me what on earth Susan was doing at the end? I can't find the book anywhere, and I can't write chapter 3 without knowing! *weep*  
  
  
Chapter 2b (joy, the idiot's getting into sub-chapters...)  
  
The Lady was not a Goddess. That much was true.   
  
She moved above the limits of Belief and Magic and Proverbial Wossnames that shackle Gods, Magical Creatures, and... Proverbial Wossnames. Like Death. She was the Lord Vetinari of the Discworld, with her thumb on the scales in just the right way so that everything happened the way she wanted it to. The beautiful thing about it was that everyone thought it was their idea.  
  
Now she moved silently over the Gods and Goddesses of the Discworld, her long dress trailing behind her, whispering in the suddenly cold wind. Her emerald eyes, eerily green from rim to rim, crinkled with restrained laughter. It was almost certainly a grim, "I-told-you-so-and-did-you-listen" laugh.  
  
The Lady's hand fell in the middle of Klatch, searching for the right piece among the tangle of carved white marble. Her fingers closed, and she brought her fist up, staring at it.  
  
"Yes," she murmured, and vanished with nothing more astonishing than a soft green after-glow.  
  
  
"... The water buffalo can be prodded and poked and the ox can be driven off cliffs, but the hedgehog can never be buggered at all, for whats or for buts or for..." The wheedling, cracking voice wound out through the University's dank corridors, adding another dimension of dull terror to the ominous place.  
  
"What verse is she on?" asked Ponder weakly, watching Nanny Ogg sing enthusiastically into an empty rum bottle, while lying full on the floor and thumping out the rhythm (-A- rhythm, at any rate, if not the right one).  
  
"What animal did she just mention?" Agnes asked wearily.  
  
"Um... a giraffe. And then an emu. Or vice versa."  
  
"The emu first, or the giraffe?"  
  
"The giraffe, I guess."  
  
"Verse 23, then. Unless the emu was first, then it's verse 15."  
  
  
A'Tuin finished with the galaxy-sized tissue with a final astronomic snort, and let it drift away into space.  
  
It may satisfy some people to know that it landed on a planet far far away and sprouted life. It may also make them very unhappy to know that they are the life that sprang from it.  
  
  
The Alchemists Guild announced to the world at large that it did not require magic in order to continue functioning normally. (i.e. Blowing up every other day.) Smoking debris and people flew through the air, some screaming, some unconcious, and some just yodeling "I could've sworn I'd got it that time!" and crashing willy-nilly into the scenery.  
  
Vimes squeezed his eyes shut as a few pieces of flaming chemicals hit his window, and thanked whoever was listening that he'd decided to keep his window shut that day to keep out the cold.   
  
  
The Discworld shuddered. Invisible nonorine (nahn-OH-reen) lightning bolts laced over the atmosphere, outside the rainbow, outside the universal window, outside the realm of normality, reality, and, most importantly, health. Nonorine is a highly toxic and radioactive colour that can be likened to ultra-violet, but much more dangerous. It is a kind of reddish-green, laced with virulent yellow.  
  
In short, itt was not the kind of colour that you wanted to wear on an important night out.   
  
The electricity snaked across the dome that protected the Discworld, eating away at whatever it touched; air, cloud, or land. One of the elephants was grazed in the flailing, and A'Tuin sneezed.  
  
The closest elephant trunked down another tissue.  
  
***  
Whew! That was hard. Writing an entire half-chapter without one mention of our established heroine. Let me know what you think, suggestions welcome! 


	4. Chapter 3

A/N: Chapter 3... hallelujah! Let it ring throughout the land, Grey's got her butt in gear. And the people rejoice. (There's some swearing in this chapter. Like in Chapter 2. And Chapter 1. Ummm... yes.)  
  
Oh, and I would like to profusely thank Butterfly and The God of Angst for their help; this wouldn't have gotten written if you hadn't stepped in. I might have been able to get to a library, but not for a week at least, and you helped quite a lot.   
  
Chapter 3  
  
Susan Sto-Helit opened her eyes and sat up. Something was gone. Something inside of her, one of the things that made her Susan.   
  
And also her bed.  
  
Susan got to her feet and brushed the decaying leaves off of her nightgown, glaring around at the dripping trees and creepers that made up her surroundings. A small creature of indeterminable species had the misfortune to wander into the clearing but fled a few seconds later, tripping over its own paws.  
  
Susan picked at her hair irritably, trying to fix it. It had never done this before. It had no RIGHT to be tangled. It was supposed... to... fix... itself... She stared at the leaves in her hand.  
  
"Damn," she hissed, crushing them into dust. She scattered them in the breeze. "Of all things." Susan screwed up her face. "Visions through a keyhole," she muttered bitterly, lifting her skirt and stalking deliberately away through the trees.  
  
  
The Lady appeared, fading into the background like a witch and seriously alarming a very old man, who had some very bad bladder problems. Nuff' said. She stared down at him with her emerald eyes, making him very happy he had already... yes.   
  
She started forward, changing shape as she walked out of the dark alleyway. Her hair came down, darkened, straightened, shortened... And her white, sufficiently Goddess-like tent of a dress morphed into a sensible black school-mistress dress, complete with the small bunch of lace at the throat. She looked, in short, like a painfully conservative teacher who had discovered her gothic side.  
  
The Lady took a deep breath of the air and nearly gagged, grabbing her throat and choking. "Ah, the first whiff of pure, 100% proof Ankh-Morpork air is always a shock for newcomers," came a voice behind her. She turned cautiously, as though afraid of what she would find there. A short, skinny man with a tray grinned up at her.  
  
"What -are- you?" she hissed, blatant disbelief dancing a merry jig on the words.  
  
"C.M.O.T. Dibbler, purveyor of fine goods, souvenirs, and sausages," Dibbler warbled, bowing as low as he could without dumping the contents of his infamous tray. "Be pleased if you'd call me Throat. Could I interest you in some of the finest sunglasses this side of... Quirm?"  
  
The Lady tried to stare intently at the creature through her eyelashes. "Sunglasses," she responded flatly, setting her weight on one hip. "Why would I need... sunglasses?"  
  
"Because... because... you're squinting, m'Lady," said Throat authoritatively, waving about a pair of finest sunglasses like a director's baton. "Perhaps because you're sensitive to the sun! Or," he whispered conspiratorially, leaning forward and hissing out of the corner of his mouth, "you can just wear them so that no one can see where you're looking... seeing as how they hide your eyes."   
  
The Lady moved away from the horrible little man. "Yes," she said uncertainly. "I will buy some. Now will you please go away and leave me alone?"  
  
Dibbler grinned a many-toothed grin. "Five dollars, and that's cutting me own throat," he said.  
  
"Two dollars, or I cut your throat for you," responded the Lady absently, fishing around in her purse. "And the darkest pair you have."  
  
Dibbler paled. "Two dollars for the lovely lady. Fifty pence extra for darkness," he added, remembering the rare Profit Fairy and how it had managed to escape him in the past.  
  
"Thank you," the Lady mumbled reluctantly. "May you live a long life..." ... Far, far away from me, she added in her head.  
  
  
Sam Vimes' eyes bugged with the effort of not strangling the man then and there. He would, of course, have to move very fast, without the slightest shadow of a noise, and be exceptionally strong, but the insane urge still gripped him like a... a... a really big gripping-thing. His left eye twitched.  
  
Lord Vetinari steepled his fingers. "I realize that it was not your duty, your Grace," he said amiably, the candlelight glinted of his pitch-black hair. Wuffles sneezed under his desk. "However, the keyword in that sentence is 'was,' I believe. Now that it is an issue of some importance, it IS your duty, in fact, to deal with the ensuing confusion."  
  
Vimes thumped the desk with a fist. "Can't we have some Guild help at LEAST?" he hissed angrily, his eyes wild. "Dwarf riots are all fine and good, but Captain Carrot can only be in one place at the same time! They're everywhere! There are Vampires wandering the streets breathing garlic breath on innocent bystanders, people are tripping over Golems and Zombies and Trolls and Gnomes and Gnolls and... and... er..."  
  
Lord Vetinari stared at Vimes' fist on the desk as though it were something out of the Dungeon Dimensions*.   
  
Vimes cleared his throat and removed his hand, taking a moment to rub the spot vigorously with the edge of his cape. "Yes, well... that's our situation," he concluded, squeaking a bit. "We could use some help. Um."  
  
"As has already been called to your attention, many Guilds have been put temporarily out of commission, for reasons undisclosed," Lord Vetinari continued calmly, completely unaware that he had been THIS CLOSE to being ripped to pieces by a Basement Dimension creature. (Um. Perhaps it's time for the Trousers of Time theory...)   
  
"What, you mean their important members have crumbled up into foul-smelling piles of dust?" Vimes answered darkly, something that he did very well.  
  
Vetinari looked at him for a moment. "Aha. Yes. That may very well be the case, although I'm sure that the honourable Mr. Slant would object to the... reference... to his current condition."  
  
"Oh yes?" Vimes muttered, glancing out the window. "And what colour is he now? Eau-de-nil? A lovely shade, I'm sure." He snapped back to the world of the living, or, aha, the un-living. "And Constable Downspout is also, as it were, 'out of commission,' sir."  
  
"Oh?"  
  
"Oh, yes," Vimes growled bitterly. "Do you know what he was doing the last time he was seen?"  
  
Vetinari arched an unsympathetic eyebrow. "Sitting there like a life-less gargoyle?"  
  
"No! Yes! I mean... yes, that's what he was doing." Vimes really, really, really wanted to throttle the man.  
  
Vetinari flashed him a brief, bright smile. "Don't let me keep you," he said dully, pulling a sheaf of papers out of his desk. "I'm sure you have quite a lot of... recruiting to do. Yes?"  
  
  
*Well, probably not the Dungeon Dimensions. Maybe the Basement Dimensions or something. Lord Vetinari had not yet lost important parts of his anatomy yet, thus leading us to the conclusion that... yes. Never mind. I'm done now. 


	5. Chapter 4

A/N: Woohoo! People actually like the story! Never imagined THAT would happen... So, right. I managed to get my hands on the new edition of "The Carpet People", which is ONLY out in the UK, *mutterand my local museum store for 10 friggin' dollarsmutter*, so you can expect some Pismire and Wight-esque comments (both are characters from The Carpet People, nyah) scattered throughout the chapter. So just in case you run across something like "Melodrama. Why do they always speak like that? I'm suprised he didn't say 'harharhar'" mixed in, you'll know why. Maybe. If you're lucky and/or convinced that there ARE pink elephants flying around your head making tweeting noises. Which I'm sure we all have. Right? Right?  
  
BTW, sorry about the lateness of it all... I was studying for my driving test and didn't have a moment to myself. Hner.  
  
Chapter 4  
  
Susan was rather flustered.   
  
It stood to reason that if you walked for very long in any direction, you would come to either a settlement or a body of water of some kind. Reason, however, was standing around shuffling its feet and trying to think up some sort of explanation for when the God of Reason came along with a lightning bolt and a bad attitude*.  
  
It was jungle. Dark, damp, dense, damp, dim, damp, dirty, and over all DAMP jungle. With no end. It seemed to go on and on and on. With no end. It seemed to go on and on and on. With no end.  
  
*cough* Continuing...  
  
Susan took out her pent-up fury on a rotten log that lay in her path. She succeeded in turning it into just so much wet sawdust. She wiped her forehead calmly, stood up, and walked directly into something large, hard, and extremely smelly.  
  
I'm talking SMELLY here. Take the smell of an overripe Wahooni, multipy it by previously digested boiled cabbage, then add a dash of Foul Ol' Ron for good measure. You might get close. This smell, however, cornered the market in un-washed, mud-rolling jungle inhabitant parfum de la puanteur.   
  
Susan reeled.  
  
  
The earthquake started near the Hub, a dull rumble deep within Cori Celesti. It rocked the hills and cliffs of Lancre, the cheese factories of Quirm, the treacherous rain mines of Llamedos**. The Lady hugged the wall as the ground underneath her feet did a spirited impression of the sea during a gale. She turned about as green as her eyes as the buildings around her bobbed up and down like ducks.  
  
The earthquake slowed as the Lady's stomach lurched. She decided to find a handy bucket. Or gutter. Or gutter inhabitant. Anything.  
  
And quick.  
  
The Lady stumbled around a bit before the earthquake stopped, managing to lose her lunch in several different areas before finding herself in front of the doors of the Unseen University. She wiped her mouth with a sleeve and blinked blearily up at the huge wooden doors.  
  
Something fell toward her.  
  
Greebo, Nanny Ogg's infamous cat/demon/pet rapist, had leapt over the wall in order to investigate the rumbling (i.e. to see if it was something he could eat, fight, or ravage). The grey, scar-ridden tom hurtled through the air yowling, realizing a second too late that the Unseen University was not the best building to jump off of.  
  
So that was what hit the Lady.  
  
She attempted to untangle the screeching cat from her hair, clothing, and sunglasses after getting on her feet again. Greebo, while smart for a cat, was still very stupid when it came to things such as letting go, not biting, and not relieving himself wherever and whenever. After a few moments of terrible struggle, the Lady managed to fling the tom off her arm and into a waiting trash pile, where he calmed and glared out at her with his baleful eyes.  
  
The doors swung open.  
  
"Coo-ee!" Nanny Ogg cried, grinning like a Jack-o-lantern. "I see Greebo's happened to you!"  
  
  
"I need," Commander Vimes said slowly, "a peppermint."  
  
Nobby relaxed. "It's just your luck, then, because I have some right-"  
  
"A FRESH peppermint," the Commander bolted quickly. "And possibly a good, stiff..." he shuddered. "... Cigar," he finished reluctantly, spitting the word.  
  
  
"So," said the Lady, adjusting her sunglasses and giving Ridcully an emerald stare. He gave her a many-toothed grin. She scowled. "I suppose you've gotten an idea of our situation?"  
  
"The bloody wizards have damn well bloody sucked up bloody all the bloody magic, that's bloody what!" Granny hissed, leaning over the table and making Ponder nearly relieve himself. "And I'm bloody well about to bloody take their bloody-"  
  
"Esme, we've heard your opinion several times," Nanny said amiably, cutting Granny off and patting her hand. "Agnes, serve the tea. And pass the crumpets."  
  
Agnes rolled her eyes. To Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg, words like "please" and "thank you" happened to other people. She thought a few bad words to herself and poured the tea.  
  
The Lady stared at the three witches, dumpy in their black dresses and pointy hats. Greebo lay sprawled over Nanny's shoulders, showering the trio with a light dusting of gray cat hair and dandruff. The witches were hawkishly observant and yet still blissfully oblivious at the same time. Walking ironies.  
  
"Not... exactly," the Lady said slowly and carefully.   
  
"Oh?" Granny muttered, buttering her crumpet with a vengeance. "And whose fault IS it?"  
  
"I don't think that's how you would put it," the Lady replied easily, leaning back into her chair. "Not who, exactly."  
  
"Than what?" asked the Archchancellor, grinning at Granny.  
  
The Lady took a sip of her tea. "Nonorine," she said carefully, putting down her cup.  
  
  
Susan woke up. She immediately wished she hadn't.  
  
A large tanned man/monkey grinned down at her. He said something in a language she didn't understand.   
  
"Yes," she said.  
  
"Ah!" he boomed. "Akmorkpork!"  
  
"Ankh-Morpork," she corrected, waving a hand. "Do you speak Morporkian?"  
  
"'Es," he said, nodding enthusiastically. "Speek 't lawk anting!"  
  
"Um," she said. "What's your name?"  
  
"Dunce!" he replied, grinning. Susan gave him a blank look. "Means 'Big' in mah langige."  
  
"...Ah," she said carefully. "I'm Susan. Susan Sto-Helit."  
  
"Susan-Susan Sto-Helit," Dunce rumbled, letting off a puff of acrid stench, "Welcoom tu Klatch!"  
  
______________  
*Actually, Patina, the Goddess of Wisdom. Patina does not have power over lightning anyway. But she does have a penguin.  
  
**Don't ask. 


	6. Chapter 5

A/N: Waaaah! I got Good Omens. Read it in about two hours straight. I need to read it again. Crowley is the MAN. Aziraphale is neat, as well. It was funny when anyone called him a great southern pansy. *smirk* (There was also a bit were it said people thought he was gayer than a tree full of bluebirds on nitrous oxide. I think I may have peed myself.) Right, so, back to MY story *egoboostegoboost*...  
  
Oh. Crap. Nearly forgot. I want to apologize for Dunce. I was rushing Chapter 4 (BAD idea), was hit with a revelation, and decided to stick in someone of my own little tailor-made race. Dunce was not meant to be a racial slur (although so far no one's taken it that way), he's just... primitive. And will be a good side-kick for good ol' conservative Susan. So there. (I also hate his accent. I'm going to work on it, I promise.)  
  
Yeah. I was out for a bit due to chronic mud. Yes, you guessed it, I took a three day trip to the Washington coast. Well, no, I tell a lie, it was Camano Island. But nearly the coast. A mile at most. Or two (or perhaps five). And there was a lot of mud and shells and mud and fish and mud and good ice cream places and mud... oh, and did I mention there was mud?  
  
Chapter 5  
  
The Lady's hair twisted with irritation as the entire population of the room turned to stare at her. Ridcully noticed a few strands of silver appearing in the bushel of stark black hair. One eyebrow twitched excitedly.  
  
"Lawks," Nanny Ogg commented after a moment, passing a biscuit to Greebo, who had migrated to a position of fuzzy purring stench in her lap. "Nasty forn' diseases taking over everything. Lawks. Soon we'll have to keep our doors closed at night.*"  
  
"Oh my," Agnes murmured.  
  
Ponder's ears went an uncomfortable shade of pink.  
  
"Nonorine is NoT a DiSeAsE!!!" the Lady growled, realizing too late that she may have put just a bit too much emphasis in her statement. She attempted to calm herself as her hair went steadily whiter. "It's a colour. Like octarine, only not. It's the ninth colour. Only Anthropomorphic Personifications can see it, like only Wizards and Witches can see octarine."  
  
"That's lovely," the Dean grumbled noisily, scooping his sixth heaping spoonful of sugar into his tea. "Then why don't THEY get rid of it?"  
  
The Lady resisted an insane urge to take the sugar spoon and ram it down the Dean's throat. "Haven't you been listening?" she rasped, a hairs breadth from screeching. "All of the magic is gone! It's gone! Poof! No more magic! Belief is magic! Anthropomorphic Personifications can't live without belief! Thus, all those lovely Gods and Goddesses and Fairies are dead! Gone! Death's world is now merely a bubble in the rubber sheet of space time! They're all dead!" She slowed, realized she had stood up, and sat down, blushing slightly.  
  
Granny Weatherwax calmly took a sip of her tea. She hadn't said much since the problem was declared to be nonorine. "Except you," she said.  
  
She was given several surprised stares from around the table.  
  
The Lady suddenly felt very, very alone. "Yes. Except... me." She looked down at her hands as her hair turned completely white, except for a single black streak over her left eye.   
  
  
(Just a mid-chapter author's note: Yes, I know I'm foreshadowing like an evil maniac. Thank you. I realized. Maybe I'll start wrapping this up in a year or two, who knows. *sarcasm*)  
  
  
Lovely, Susan thought to herself. I'm transported to, where else, Klatch, unawares, my hair stops working, I really really need a bath, and I get stuck with... Him.  
  
Dunce grinned at her. "You will LIKE it here," he predicted, doing a spirited rendition of Nostradamus on funny mushrooms. "Herw did you get here, anyway?"  
  
That got her. Susan thought for a moment. "Magic," she replied mistily, waving her hands in a suitably eldritch fashion, like she would to a small child. "You know. Um... oblong forces."  
  
Dunce gave her an odd look. "'Es," he replied, beginning to steer her gently into a direction that was, to Susan, just like every other direction. "You get a bump ern yer head, right? Cerme derwn frerm..."  
  
"The sky," Susan put in, allowing herself to be pushed along.  
  
"Right," he said. "Anyway, you cerme derwn frerm ther sky, hit a tree er two, wake up, think abert majik, mebbe', knerw you cerme cuza' majik, then meet Dunce." He grinned at her. "Lerjikal thinkinge."  
  
Susan stared at him. It WAS logical, grammatical problems and confusing pronounciation aside. That was exactly how she would have thought it, if she didn't know any better. Dunce was... smart. Logical, at least. Certainly not exactly a Detritus of the Klatchian jungle.  
  
"Quite logical," she agreed. "But not the truth." It was his turn to stare at her. "I'm not sure exactly how I got here, but I did NOT fall out of... the... sky..." Susan stopped. "Ah-HAH! I found the hole in your statement. Where did I come from if I fell out of the sky?"  
  
A look of bemusement came over Dunce. "Therght YOU werd knerw that," he told her authoritatively, patting her on the head. "Yer mer mixed oop then I therght. Mebbe' a cuppa' tea? Calm yer nerves? Made frerm real leaves."  
  
"That would just... make my day," she responded weakly, legs moving of their own accord. Oh yes, she thought bitterly. Tea made with REAL LEAVES. That would top of this lovely, lovely day quite nicely, thank you very much. I've never had tea made with REAL LEAVES before, my goodness. Us Sto people are ridiculously primitive. No, we drink tea made from COW SHIT.  
  
"Frerm real leaves instead erf, say, cow shit."  
  
  
"So next we go to Klatch," the Lady said carefully, her hair writhing. She adjusted her sunglasses purposefully.   
  
"Why Klatch?" the Lecturer in Recent Runes asked warily.  
  
"Because that's where the last living Anthropomorphic Personification is," the Lady snapped, standing up and ramming her hip into the table by accident.  
  
"Except you," commented Ridcully, echoing Granny Weatherwax. The afore-mentioned witch gave him a very sharp look. He withered a bit.  
  
"Right! Fine! Except me! Thank you for driving it through my head!"  
  
"You're welcome."  
  
"Shut up."  
  
  
______________  
*Lancre was an uncomplicated country, kept even simpler by the great King Verence, the great Granny Weatherwax, and the great Lancre Army (Sean Ogg) and also his knife. 


	7. Chapter 6

A/N: Whoo... here's chapter 6. It's, what, TWO days after chapter 5? I suppose I need to do some catching up to make up for 4 and 5 anyway... Besides, it won't kill me to write more.  
  
And now, for your glance inside Grey's life... I got a Kirin black tea non-carbonated soft drink today. It's got a neato bottle and some killer Engrish. It goes like this... "Sunlight and mist turn a young leaf into tea/Tea can turn you into something new/Tea/A natural gift of love." I love Engrish. It turns me into something new.  
  
Chapter 6  
  
The sun set on Ankh-Morpork, signaling the end to the first day of magic-lacking insanity. The fumes rising off the Ankh turned the air myriad colours that danced in the evening breeze, occasionally leaving greasy trails on Commander Vimes window.  
  
He was clocking up the overtime tonight.  
  
Sybil's butler Willikins (and Vimes' as well, but he was still unused to it) had sent a boy down to tell him to come home, but the Commander had stayed in anyway. There was paperwork, more than usual, Corporal Shoe to worry about, Sergeant Angua to worry about, the normal worrying over Nobby... the list was endless. Sam Vimes kneaded the bridge of his nose. It had not been a good day.  
  
Carrot hadn't reported in all day, aside from that morning (*chapter 1), and it was worrying the Commander to no end. Carrot normally helped him go through paperwork or sent reports every hour, whether he was down the hall or in Quirm admiring the floral clock. Captain Carrot was around, that was for sure, he always was, but the question was WHERE.   
  
Commander Vimes looked out the window, catching the last of the multi-coloured sunset. Red... green... yellow... He grinned mirthlessly to himself and turned back to his work.  
  
  
The great A'Tuin paddled through space, moving slowly and languidly like melting cream cheese on a table with one short leg. He was feeling a little better, a bit less snuffly perhaps, although he wouldn't be able to move like he normally did for a few days.   
  
He hoped fervently that it was only a 24 lightyear flu.  
  
  
Susan stared down at her real leaf tea. It was dark and steamy and smelled a bit like peppermint. She hadn't tasted it yet, but it let off waves of sweet and wet clouds of steam.  
  
Dunce had led her no more than a small Ankh-Morpork city block through the dense jungle, waving aside heavy vines and large branches dripping with damp lichen as though they were pebbles in his path. She held a new respect for him. He was huge, nearly as big as the trolls out by Quirm, where she had gone to girls school, muscular, and yet smart enough to know that not everything ran by magic. He was a primitive savage in every way*.  
  
There was a clearing, with nests of grass set high in the trees, a trampled area where there was a place for a cooking fire, and a hidden supply of rocks and crude weapons. Dunce had laid an enormous leaf on one of the small boulders around the fire, sat her down on it bodily, and began preparing the tea. There were cups, bowls in Susan's hands, fashioned out of some sort of soft rock. They nestled easily in Dunce's gigantic palms.  
  
Susan let out a sigh, the steam rising from her cup swirling in her breath. She felt warm and relaxed and... dead. At the moment, she would have happily climbed into a custom-made coffin if it had a comfortable lining and perhaps a good quilt. She wondered fuzzily if she could stop time, sleep a while, and then start it again, refreshed. She would have more time to get things done.  
  
No, she was too tired.  
  
Susan, disregarding all the warning signals of falling asleep in the jungle with only a very very large MALE native set off, slid slowly and carefully off the rock, laying back her head on the leaf. A moment later she was fast asleep, her steadily darkening hair spread out from her head in a sunburst of slumber.   
  
Dunce looked at her from across the clearing. "" he thought to himself, in the language his mother had taught him. ""  
  
  
The Lady was irritable. She was never irritable. This was not supposed to happen. When she was in the presence of idiots she was ALWAYS cool and collected. She NEVER exploded like an old squash. Never. She shuddered and wiped her forehead. Her morphic resonance was working overtime. She had to concentrate just to keep her eyes green.  
  
This was not supposed to be happening. She should never have left Cori Celesti.   
  
The Lady looked up at the huddled group. She'd told them to get in a circle, but she hadn't meant an occult circle, dammit. Just... in a circular area. All together. Without miraculously dripping candles, (a good two weeks work), viles of bubbling green stuff, (most likely baking soda and vinegar, stolen from Mrs. Whitlow), and gobs and gobs of ridiculously old chalk scrabbled on the floor.  
  
The Lady herself was an occult being, and she STILL couldn't tell what they meant.  
  
  
The Librarian hummed gaily to himself. He hadn't felt this light in ages. Or as tall. It was almost an entirely new feeling, being tall. He knew what it felt like being high, yes, but that required climbing and swinging and jumping on people's heads. But being tall... ah, it was wonderful. All you had to do to be high up was STAND. It was remarkable.  
  
But something was... missing. He slowed, cooed to himself, and stared up the walls carefully. He spent quite a while tapping one curly-toed shoe and staring about.  
  
"Aha," the Librarian said carefully, and began walking again. This was worse than the Trousers of Time. It was the Trousers of Space.  
  
  
"What's this one?" Granny Weatherwax asked carefully, prodding one of the scribbles with the toe of her enormous Lancre boot.   
  
"That is, er, an abstract representation of, mm, er, a, um, a banana," the Dean replied miserably. "I think I may have gotten a bit carried away."  
  
Granny Weatherwax stared up at the chalk runes on the walls. "Oh, is that so," she murmured. "How did you manage to get them on the rafters?"  
  
  
Dunce grinned to himself with the sort of determined satisfaction that came from finishing a very long hard job. The fire had since been reduced to glowing embers, letting off a warm, orange glow that barely illuminated the clearing. Susan lay in one of the nests in the trees, carefully moved from the ground to her safer position.  
  
Dunce let out a long, low whistle, and settled himself in front of the fire, setting his spear beside him. The trees around him moved without wind. Flashes of invisible nonorine lightning spun around him.   
  
The world was the wrong colour tonight.  
  
  
On the other side of the Discworld, an elderly lady was suprised out of her wits by a few slightly grotesque beings. They grinned uncertainly at her, waved, and stared about.  
  
"Sorry, guv," the tallest of the Basement Dimension Things said apologetically, as they began to fade out of view. "Wrong dimension."  
  
  
______________  
*That is, he knew how to make nutritious tea out of the poisonous bark of the Bhong-Bhong tree, could fashion discarded snake-skins into servicable fish nets, and had a long and complicated history, lineage, and religion. He was not, however like some of the savages that went around dressed in breeches and coats and spoke in refined accents. 


	8. Chapter 7

A/N: Nothing much to say. Whee. It's spring break. I'm happy. Aargh... I should start wrapping this fic up and work on my novel... Right, so, I'm quite literally making this up as I go along, so... yeah. Anthropomorphic Personifications are springing up like weeds. Have fun with the lawn mower.  
  
Chapter 7  
  
Susan woke.  
  
No, that's the wrong thing to say.   
  
Susan opened her eyes, violet from rim to rim. She sat up, and her hair swung with her movements, deep red-gold in the morning light. Susan gave her surroundings a cold, hard stare and began climbing down from her nest.  
  
Dunce awoke with a snort, and looked up at the girl. She jumped down lightly, landing on her feet, and turned on her heel to stare at him.  
  
Dunce stared at her. Her eyes were violet and glowing from within, her hair was reddish gold, and her skin was a pale, translucent shade, nearly blue. She smiled, arched her eyebrows, and vanished with a sound like an indrawn breath.   
  
The Klatchian jungle god grinned to himself and rumbled a deep purr of satisfaction.  
  
It had begun.  
  
  
The Lady's eyes faded, and she drooped in the middle of the circle. She began to feel the weight of reality setting upon her, shackles she had never felt before clicking into place. The people around her began to yell and run about, but it was as if she was seeing it through a thick pink cloud, all shadows and muffled murmurs.  
  
Her eyes snapped open, green once more, but not rim to rim. She had irises, pupils... the Archchancellor shushed the wizards around him. The Lady could feel condensed humanity flowing through her veins, pressed, strained, caught in her like a fly in hardening tree sap. It was a cold, hard humanity, a granite tombstone among light river rocks.  
  
So this was what it was like to be Susan Sto-Helit, heir apparent to Death.  
  
The Lady steadied herself on whatever wizard or witch was in reach, grinning the toothy, cold grin of death. A strand of mixed black and white hair fell across her left eye. She took off her sunglasses and fixed the Archchancellor with a cold green stare.   
  
"WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING AT?" she asked.  
  
  
The great A'Tuin hummed a nasal, tuneless melody that rumbled across space. He sniffed a few times, sneezed noisily, and continued his song.  
  
  
There hadn't always been believers. Sometimes a God just had to make do with what was around. Whispers in the leaves, the skittering of primordial bugs under a rock, the hidden streams singing their maddening songs of hope. These things are old. Their belief is old. It has stood the test of time, and it will go on when all other belief has disappeared from the face of the Disc. It will go on when the source has been quieted.   
  
The key words here are "go on."   
  
Duhaalomungamungacenchoknbenkomunce* could go on for almost an eternity on this belief. The chance idle visitor would believe in the god for a short a while, if only as some strange jungle native, but the belief would be strong and hot and NEW. It would remind Duhaalomungamungacenchoknbenkomunce of the tribes... the tribes of primitive, jaded worshippers who sacrificed to him whether he wanted it or not, who would die for him in battle, who would someday drink the bittersweet tea of victory (made with REAL LEAVES) in his jungle hall.  
  
Until, of course, after a few short scores of years, like minutes in the life of a god, when the visitor died. Most often alone, jibbering nonsense, or struck by lightning when claiming that gods need belief in order to survive.   
  
Some gods needed human belief, that is. Most do. But there are a small handful...  
  
  
The Librarian moved down the corridor with the surprising speed of someone who has had to move 300 pounds of pure orangutan around for roughly ten years. His footsteps were far apart, in a loping gait particular to apes, and he moved silently.  
  
He had had quite a few experiences with the Trousers of Time, all of which ended up fine and dandy, but the Trousers of Space were different. It could take something real and make it half imaginary, something pink and make it half blue. It was not a case of different events, it was a case of different... non-events, it could be called.  
  
And now he had to warn someone while he could still talk.  
  
  
SHIT, said the Lady.  
  
The Dean winced. "Yes?" he asked cautiously, shuffling away from her. "What's, um, wrong?"  
  
IT'S COMING BACK, the Lady replied, reaching out to grab the Archchancellor's collar.   
  
"That's good... isn't it?" the Lecturer in Recent Runes stuttered, twisting his robe in his hands. "The magic's coming back?"  
  
WE'VE MESSED EVERYTHING UP! she groaned, shaking Ridcully and making his hat fall off. IT'S ALL WRONG! THE SCALES... IT'S COMING BACK TO THE WRONG PEOPLE!  
  
"Hmm," Granny said, and silence fell. She tapped the toe of her boot a few times. A shadow seemed to grow out from the three witches. Ponder took a step back, in company with the rest of the staff. "So now you're the heir to Death."  
  
The Lady dropped Mustrum with a thud, her fingers long, blue, and skeletal.  
  
She flashed Granny a hard, cold smile. IN A WORD, she said, YES.  
  
  
Susan whirled through space and time like a top through water, a flash of colour and fire and emotion. She couldn't remember where she had been, she couldn't remember where she was, she couldn't remember where she was going. And best of all, she didn't care.  
  
Isn't life grand?  
  
_________  
*Hey, give the guy a break. He'd lived for thousands of years and had hundreds of thousands of believers. He had to do SOMETHING with all the names...**  
  
**Oh, by the way, it's Dunce. 


	9. Chapter 8

A/N: As per Twist's request, I'm going to pack as much as I possibly can into this chapter without going completely insane (oop! Too late! ^-^). I have pretty much all the time in the world to work on this thing, so I figure that I should work really hard on the last few chapters. Yes, *weep*, the end is near, but I'm planning my next one already. A quick reviewer poll... should my next Discworld fic be centered on vampires or Elves? Personally I'm leaning towards vampires, but I'm really not sure. Aargh, I feel like Hwel. Some kind of idea-magnet. Blargh. Ah, well, on with the show!  
  
  
Chapter 8  
  
  
Magic was returning to the Discworld. In some ways this was a good thing, as trolls rumbled to life in the hills and mountains, zombies quite literally pulled themselves together, and talking trees awoke. In a remote corner of the Disc the Luggage snapped its lid irritably a few times and Rincewind accidentally turned a small rock into a ham sandwich, fainting dead away from shock.  
  
With the hiss of black sand, a small black cottage blurred into focus on the edges of reality. Death's eyes flared blue. Death was alive. Death was abroad.  
  
Death was -angry-.  
  
It was bad enough being dead. That was just a minor inconvenience. But death was Death's JOB, it didn't just work itself if he went away.  
  
But people had died. Lifetimers were missing on the shelves.  
  
Death took long, purposeful strides down the black corridor toward the enormous black door. As he passed the black umbrella stand in the black entryway, he grabbed his scythe. Something clicked, and the blade shot out of the handle.  
  
Deep in Death's sockets, two red supernovas flared.  
  
  
Susan Sto-Helit popped into existence with a sigh, shaking out her hair and giving the world in general a maliciously innocent grin. She could feel something off-balance, something pulling at her elbow, shouting that something was wrong.  
  
What did she care? She had the world. The world was a simple glittering toy to be tossed and tumbled and broken and forgotten. There were other worlds, other lives, other magical fields to thrive in.  
  
Susan could feel the memories setting in. She could make her own toys; she had done it before. Carve them out of a supple twig of nothingness, change it to her every whim, play games with it until it wore out or she tired of it. Power was not sitting at the top of some mountain, blindly pretending to rule lives and souls. Power was not catering to mere mortals. Power was not saving anyone.  
  
Power was fear. Put the fear of death in someone and they will never go to battle. Put the fear of boredom in someone and they will die for a thrill. But to fear oneself, to fear one's very existence, that was power. Susan had the power. Susan could make the world destroy itself.   
  
That sounded like fun.  
  
  
SUSAN HAS BECOME THE LADY, the Lady grumbled in a slightly sullen way. BUT SHE DOESN'T REMEMBER THE RESPONSIBILITY, THE.. THE -CARE- THE JOB TAKES.  
  
"So this isn't going to be a cup of tea, eh?" Ponder sighed miserably, slouching on a rune-covered table. "She'll try to destroy the world or something."  
  
SUSAN WOULD NOT DESTROY THE WORLD, the Lady snapped at him, shaking herself out of her sulk. SUSAN HOLDS IT TOO CLOSE, TOO DEAR. SHE IS TOO HUMAN TO DESTROY THE WORLD.  
  
"But YOU'RE different," Granny pointed out, arching her eyebrows and KNOWING she had hit a nerve. "Less calm. More irritable. Susan Sto-Helit may be human enough not to destroy the world, but is what she has become as well?"  
  
The Lady hesitated. She had never hesitated, ever, in her entire life. She always had the answers to all the riddles, the keys to all the locks. She found it distinctly unnerving. It was like knowing you didn't know what you knew you had known before.  
  
I DON'T KNOW, the Lady admitted testily, sweeping her skirts. ALL I WANT TO DO IS GET MY OLD VOICE BACK--  
  
BEFORE IT GETS CONFUSING? Death finished, suddenly looming over her with his glowing red eyes. WHERE IS SUSAN? WHY ARE YOU TALKING WITH HER VOICE?  
  
I THOUGHT YOU KNEW EVERYTHING, the Lady replied frostily, turning her back on the seven foot skeleton. WHY DON'T YOU TELL ME?  
  
DO NOT ADDRESS ME AS YOU WOULD A SCHOOLCHILD, Death rattled, a cold black fury permeating the air around him. THERE ARE MANY THINGS I HAVE NO KNOWLEDGE OF. WHERE IS SUSAN?  
  
The Lady was silent. A dreadful certainty swept through her like a frozen tidal wave, sending icicles down her spine. The knowledge took her by the throat, forbidding the words to pass her lips.  
  
"She's on Cori Celesti," the Lady croaked, her eyes glittering a dull emerald green.  
  
  
The Librarian grinned disarmingly down at the trembling student wizard, pulling his lips back from his teeth in the way of orangutans everywhere. The student shook.  
  
"I remember you," the Librarian rumbled, his bright red beard grinning with him. "You got 'Tantric Sex for the Feeble-Minded' wet in the bath. Oh, by the way, could you go run and tell the faculty that..... oook?"  
  
The student fainted dead away, and the Librarian caught him happily in his long shaggy arms.   
  
The orangutan tied his badge around the part of himself where his neck probably was. Time to save the world.  
  
  
Somewhere near the hub, in an enormous temple on the cliffs, three priests read the future on enormous stone tablets.  
  
The fact that they were at the bottom of the last one is not terribly important but just relevant enough to mention.  
  
  
Susan giggled as she placed her hands palms down on the map of the Discworld, brushing away dust and debris and chess pieces. She trailed her fingers over the surface, leaving nonorine wakes like spreading germs swirling across the top.   
  
Ah. THIS was how it was supposed to work. Susans eyes burned violet as the rancid waves glazed the grid in a thick, sweetly decaying frost, like a big, huge, rotten, decadent CAKE. She could taste the fear already, burning her tongue.   
  
It was a wonderful sensation.  
  
Thunder rumbled in the clouds underneath her, blue flashes illuminating her smile. This was SO MUCH FUN. She had never imagined it could be this way. She must be dreaming.  
  
Susan Sto-Helit woke up. 


	10. Chapter 9

A/N: Ach. Due to extreme ickiness, homework, tests, sicknesses, and such-like, not only is this chapter late, it's also SHORT. Many apologies; I like short chapters less than anybody. *weep*  
  
  
Chapter 9 (woo!)  
  
  
Shit. Shitshitshit. Susan pulled her hands away from the table as though it burned, which it just so happened to be doing. Bad thing.  
  
Her hair was red. No. It wasn't supposed to be red. She felt as though someone else had taken over her life and she was just watching from the shadows, like a usurped king on the borders, waiting, always waiting.  
  
It was not a nice feeling.  
  
Susan staggered backwards, catching her heels on Io's arm and landing on something squishy. It turned out to be one of his eyes. This was really really disgusting.  
  
"Ouch," mumbled Io, twitching.  
  
Susan stared at him. There was nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, no way out. They would wake up and do something horrificly GODLY to her just for being there, sitting on Io's eye.  
  
Who did they think they were, anyway? Gods?  
  
  
The Lady clenched her skirt tightly, willing it white and long and holy. Blast. Nothing was going according to plan. She had to be the Lady again. No more Susan.  
  
"Bugger all this for a lark," the Dean griped, crossing his arms over his expansive torso and shooting self-righteous glances around the room.  
  
"Shut up, you daft old fool," Granny said absentmindedly. The Dean looked affronted.  
  
Death glowered patiently in the corner. He was used to being patient. Sometimes you had to wait. A lot of times.  
  
  
Oh, drat.  
  
Rincewind stared hopelessly at the granite ham sandwich. It wasn't changing.  
  
The Luggage made some noise in the bushes. Probably killing something. A rabbit, maybe.  
  
Rincewind brightened up.  
  
  
-fzzt-  
  
-parp-  
  
+++ Reboot Universe to continue +++  
  
*squea-THUNK*  
  
+++ Out of Cheese Error. Initiate FTB and divide Pi by Cucumber +++  
  
*fsssssssssssssssssssssssssh*  
  
+++ Abnormalities in all programs disintegrating. Create Anti-Virus program Y/N +++  
  
  
Adrian stared at the machine.  
  
Hex stared back.  
  
Very, very carefully, the student wizard pushed a key on the enormous keyboard.  
  
  
+++ Initiating creation of Universal Anti-Virus Program. Please stand by +++   
  
  
  
______________________  
Yes. Eensy-weensy chapter. But IMPORTANT! Incredibly important! Truly! *ducks miscellanious thrown objects* 


	11. Chapter 10

A/N: Chapter Ten. I never thought I'd get here. This really kind of sucks, considering it's the last chapter. I had SO MUCH FUN with Octarine Deficiency, you have no idea. I never had writer's block on it, excepting Chapter 9, and I always looked forward to working on it. Waaaaaaaah! It's going to be over!!! (But I left a window open just in case...)  
  
  
Chapter 10  
  
  
+++ Loading Anti-Virus Program +++  
  
  
A'Tuin stretched, sending the ice crystals that had formed on his flippers flying. He'd been sluggish lately, it was time to get back to work. A'tuin moved his flippers, and the world moved...  
  
  
+++ Initiating Abnormality Scan +++  
  
  
Susan Sto-Helit stood, gathering her billowing white skirts together and skipping away over stirring deities. She figured her chances of getting out of this alive and still in one piece wouldn't be greater if she wasn't actually sitting on bits of the victims.  
  
She didn't notice the red tint of her hair flowing away into the air around her.  
  
An invisible hand grabbed her. She started to shriek, but she was pulled into the endless blue of the infinite despite her struggles.  
  
  
The Lady felt her eyes fade into green gradually. She didn't understand. They would be dead in seconds! There was no chance for things to be normal again!  
  
Death turned toward her, a towering black island amidst the rioting confusion.  
  
One blue pinprick flared. SEE YOU ON THE OTHER SIDE, he said.  
  
The Lady vanished with a slow grin of realization.  
  
  
+++ Abnormality Scan Complete. Correction Cycle Underway. Please Stand By +++  
  
  
Dunce hummed a song of blessing to himself, lumbering slowly through the forest. He supposed he should go up to Cori Celesti one of these days, see how everyone was doing, knock a few heads together until they all saw sense.  
  
They had good mead up here. Real leaf tea didn't even come close.  
  
Dunce looked up at the brightening sky and grinned, turning the hum into a booming rhythm, all archaic words and throat-singing. One of these days.  
  
  
+++ Correction Cycle Complete. All Virus Programs Have Been Purged +++  
  
  
Adrian Turnipseed hoped fervently that he hadn't done anything wrong.  
  
  
+++ Warning: This Anti-Virus Program Will Need Consistent Maintenance And Updating To Keep Up With Virus Technology +++  
  
  
"This," Granny Weatherwax stated, turning to the Archchancellor, "is all your fault."  
  
"Why is it always MY fault?" Ridcully retorted.  
  
"We're going home, Gytha," Granny said, turning. Nanny Ogg bustled after her, shooting delighted grins back and forth, closely followed by Agnes.  
  
"Tata!" Nanny giggled, waving her broomstick in the air. "Must fly! Lovely gin you men have!"  
  
A level of silence descended on the faculty.  
  
"Don't tell me you gave her the gin," the Dean moaned after the witches were out of earshot.  
  
Ponder Stibbons withered. "She gave some of her local stuff," he responded in a slightly shriveled tone. "It's made of apples."  
  
"Apples?" the Lecturer in Recent Runes boomed.  
  
Ponder paused. "Well... mainly apples."  
  
  
  
+++ Octarine Deficiency Cycle Complete +++ 


End file.
